STORIES IN A NUTSHELL – THE PURSE OF GOLD

The Purse Of Gold

A Jewish Folktale

A beggar found a leather purse that someone had dropped in the marketplace. Opening it, he discovered that it contained 100 pieces of gold. Then he heard a merchant shout, “A reward! A reward to the one who finds my leather purse!”

Being an honest man, the beggar came forward and handed the purse to the merchant saying, “Here is your purse. May I have the reward now?”

“Reward?” scoffed the merchant, greedily counting his gold. “Why the purse I dropped had 200 pieces of gold in it. You’ve already stolen more than the reward! Go away or I’ll tell the police.”

“I’m an honest man,” said the beggar defiantly. “Let us take this matter to the court.”

In court the judge patiently listened to both sides of the story and said, “I believe you both. Justice is possible. Merchant, you stated that the purse you lost contained 200 pieces of gold. Well, that’s a considerable cost. But, the purse this beggar found had only 100 pieces of gold. Therefore, it couldn’t be the one you lost.”

And, with that, the judge gave the purse and all the gold to the beggar.

About

If you really, really need to speak better in English, and you are a hard-working student, then I am the teacher for you. I have been a native English teacher for more than 17 years.
I will help you, not by giving you the answers, but by teaching you to see your mistakes, and to show you how to correct them yourself. I want to stop you needing a teacher.

Quick Links

Online Lessons

Online lessons are better than classroom lessons
Unfortunately, some students still don’t believe this. They believe that it is better to learn with face-to-face lessons in a traditional classroom. I have written a free guide to stop those doubts, and show you that online lessons are better than traditional classroom lessons.